Twitter and the Demise of Mystery

Posted by Chris Campbell at Wednesday, April 22, 2009

And this is why I loathe Twitter. No, not the business or its founders or the platform or whatever; I think these guys came up with a simple and seemingly brilliant idea. And I caught one of the founders on Colbert recently and actually found him to be interesting and pretty down-to-earth.

Why I detest this whole idea has finally come to me. To my eyes and ears, Twitter falls right in line with Wal Mart, hipsters and mass media. In addition to being things that I disdain, they share in the watering down of America. Companies and people see a thirst for immediacy and short cuts and Twitter and the like fill that need. People no longer look to live in the moment or the next moment. We're being pushed to sound bite everything and there's little to no time for mystery.

I can say with little doubt that if some of my contemporary heroes, say Jeff Tweedy, Springsteen and/or Obama, started sending out regular Twitter updates, I would be absolutely disgusted. There needs to be some unknown. Despite a few drunken photos with folks I admire, I've always said that I don't want to meet those I look up to. Why risk what they've already given? (Unless it's Brent Best, who's just classic.)

I continue to ramble. But what I want is a little more grey area in this world. We wear clothes for a reason.